Garsington Plan Update: the Survey has taken place…what now?

I am delighted to be able to tell you that we have collected 808 completed copies of the Questionnaire. That means that well over half of the people living in Garsington aged over 11 have filled one in. A warm thank you to everyone who did so!

Especial thanks are due to the small army of distributors (25 or so people) who worked to such good effect, ensuring that so many completed Surveys got out and back in time.

The data on the Questionnaire will initially be analysed electronically, thanks to the good offices of South Oxfordshire District Council. They will let us have the results by the beginning of June – too late, unfortunately, to catch this copy of the Newsletter. You may be very sure that the headlines (and some of the detail) will feature prominently in the next edition. We shall also be including a good deal of our what we have found out on our website.

Before moving on, I should like to apologise to the very few households who did not receive a copy of the Survey. We hope you understand that any oversight on our part was completely unintentional. Also, where returns have come in past the deadline, we cannot now add them in to the work being done by SODC. We can, however, look at them ourselves and pick up on any interesting comments.

Fewer “wraps” (the outside pages where people were asked to identify themselves) were returned overall, but 157 people said either that they wanted to know more about village activities, or wished to volunteer their services. Many of you ticked more than one box. That data is in the process of being analysed by the Steering Group. We shall pass on the relevant information as quickly as we can to the clubs and groups in the village. In some areas, however, the activity is not already supported by any existing group. In those cases, we shall try in the course of the next few months to start discussions involving the people who have expressed an interest – provided, of course, that there seem to be sufficient numbers involved.

I should add that, if you ticked a box you might expect to hear from someone connected with that area of activity in the fairly near future. There were, however, a number of people who ticked boxes, but omitted to put their name or contact details on the sheet. If you hear nothing over the couple of months, you could contact us to see whether we had your details.

Last, but by no means least, is the Prize Draw! I am pleased to be able to announce that the lucky winners from the 200+ who entered are: MARK HORNER and DELIA WELLS.